Thanx, LMo, for the invitation to do a summary. I stumbled across this site while searching for some answers or understanding or insite into my son's situation. I recently visited him in a different state and returned home yesterday sad. I decided to openly acknowledge what I have quietly and quickly minimized in my own mind and to others with my son for many years now.

I had my son when I was 19. He was a live wire! He was active and really inquisitive. He was a beautiful blonde haired, blue-eyed boy with a lot of life....and a lot of questions.

By the time he was 2 family and friends were suggesting that he be tested as a "gifted child". Sometimes I belived he really was exceptional and other times I just thought I was a proud and predjudice mother.

His father was a very intelligent, charismatic, criminal addict. I was young, uneducated, and naive. I stayed......and stayed........
We were married 13 years. Many of those years were horrendous. A few were sweet, loving and uneventful.

Through the years Nate really advanced. I homeschooled all of my children. (Four of them at the time.) Nate taught himself binary math at 8 (I had never even heard of it.) He built his own computer at 8 or 9. During his years of 10-12 he created his own little "world" named Metronomia. He created a written and verbal language for it! It was amazing!

I knew that he worked on this stuff. I really felt that he buried himself in his room to avoid the open conflict being demonstrated in his home; he had created an escape from the reality that I will never be able to fully discrible.

Later, his father and I divorced. I moved to a different state with the children. I put them in counseling and enrolled them in a wonderful private school while I went to college, too. It was a difficult and exillerating time. I began to dream dreams and actually make them come true.

All the while my children were the focus of my life. I loved them soooo much. They discribe the time as knowing me as angry and absent. I was stressed and overwhelmed, but challenge and exhillerated. I worked hard to excel at everything. I see now how my children paid the price for that. But, at the time I was doing the very best I could and I am proud of all that I singly accomplished during that time.

Nate's teacher discribed Nate as "dark". He recented counseling. He felt like it was labeling him somehow. But he became almost despondent at times. His father was arrested during this time, and sent to prison. It was hard on us all, even though he and I had been divorced for several years by this time. Nate completed his 8th grade and his first year in high school was a horrible struggle for him. He was in public school and hated it. He was going to the library and choosing to read things like quantum physics and other very brainy material and resented being in a class where he had to read material and answer questions like, " In the story, what color was the ice cream cone Johnny was eating." He became more and more withdrawn. He would be in his room for hours working on simple homework assignments. I was raising 4 children, trying to be an "involved" mom at their very demanding-of-parents private school, going to college, rebuilding my own life and sense of self and working an internship during this time. I was also dating a very good, but hard to relate to Dr. during this time. He was very good to the kids in the ways he could be, but struggled with relationships with them.

During this time one of Nate's teachers told me she thought that Nate was "Special Ed." material. That he had a hard time following instructions and seemed confused by instructions.

He related to me that school was very stressful to him and he could not function well if he had to arrive just as the bell was ringing. He needed 20 or 30 minutes to "get ready" after he got there.

He basically had 2 male friends in school that were also from single-mom homes. They would often be discribled as disturbed boys.

Nate startled easily his entire life. That really stands out to me. And he was very sensitive to anyone in need or experiencing pain. He never was too big to hug me - even in public and he never really argued. He would ask to "talk to me" and was always very reasonable....well beyond his years.

His friends were dropping out of school and I had to struggle to keep him in school. I mean, really work hard. His Jr. year we spent in Hawaii. He homeschooled that year and he did great. I basically just designed it like a college level course with mostly independent study and research papers. He did great and considers that year one of his best. His Sr. year he went to a private school and graduated as validictorian.

His other brother and his sisters also excelled in the schools they were in. They did not struggle with adjustments like he did, but all graduated with honors.

In the meantime Nate grew more withdrawn. He did not date. He had few friends. My parents had tried to help him learn to drive but it was scarey. My dad used to say that Nate would start describing a scientific process and just drive on the wrong side of the road. He passed the writted part of his driving test, but could never pass the driving part. He failed miserably twice and never tried again.

I caught him once in 9th grade high on pot. I watched closely, but never actually caught him again. His siblings tell me that he was using other drugs during this time, too. I don't doubt it.

He was always brilliant. He was an excellent artist. He drew the eye of his instructors as being exceptional, but dropped out when they required him to speak to the class about his work. He experienced so much anxiety that he could not bare it.

I and my family have discribed Nate for years as one of those guys that is so brainy, but no common sense. Inside, I have worried there is more. I can not put a finger on it, though.

In my recent visit to see him an event occured where I accompanied them to the police station to make a report. The police officer pulled me aside and explained that he worried that my son was currently using a substance and was obviously "slow". He was concerned that my son was being taken advantage of because of that.

More than once he has been taken advantage of by people "needing" to borrow money, etc.

He has such a sweet heart. And when he is around one or two of his family members he is warm and talkative.

I have wondered about some sort of anxiety disorder. He seems obsessed with good and evil type stuff. I have wondered about more serious disorders. Still, he is so perfect in my eyes in so many ways.

The best way I have heard him discribed is as a young Einstein that paints the cobblestones to find his way to work while he is thinking so deeply on other things.

Still, it hurts that someone like the police see him as "slow". Not, afraid or anxious, but "slow". He said that he had a difficult time interviewing my son because he could not follow the conversation. I know what he is discribing. Yet, I can't understand or explain it.

He is very likeable, but quiet and withdrawn. Simple things seem complicated to him. He can only keep jobs like dishwasher. Something simple, repeatitive and brainless. I have seen him get fired from positions because the boss thinks he "just left the job without being told to'. Nate discribes confusion over what his instructions were. He is living in a motel paying 600 a month on a week to week basis while making 800 a month as a dishwasher. His one and only girlfriend (until recently)was extrememly controlling. He couldn't do anything for himself and I felt like she kept him stuck by doing everything for him. (I.E. finding him employment where she worked, driving him everywhere, finding the houses to rent, reminding him of birthdays and important events.) When they broke up (he did it) he was homeless and jobless and carless. He rarely calls anyone in the family. When he does it is always such a happy reunion. His brother and sisters love him so much, and he loves them. But, unlike them, he will go years without contacting anyone. We hear things like he is living in the woods, etc.

I have basically accepted that he is very nature oriented and doing that for him is not like doing that for most people. His new girlfriend that is 18 going on 12 is sweet, but, wow, she is something. Really, 11 or 12 emotionally. Maybe that is good for him because he has to be the adult to her, I don't know.

I have blamed myself for being overbearing. Maybe he just didn't seperate from me. So, I just try to think of his long absenses as part of the seperation process that is just different than the other kids who openly tell me no or to butt out.

I don't know. It is all so confusing and complicated and multi-faceted. He is briliant with art, and computers and math. Every person in our family has stories that we tell that we all "wow" over when it comes to him. And time to time we tell those stories when we miss him or are wondering where he is and what he is doing, but have no way to contact him.

The strange thing is, I usually start praying that he will call and within hours to days he does!

But, this time when the policeman discribed him as "slow" moving his finger in circles around his ear, when I felt the protective rage well up in me, I just calmed down and gentle shook my head that I understood.

I just can't ignor that gut feeling anylonger that says it is more than lack of common sense from a brilliant guy.

I really would appreciate resources, feedback, even "aha" thoughts or feelings.

He wants me to go pick him up and help him move back here in a couple of weeks. I am going to. I want to help him, but I do not want to enable him. Yet, I don't want to neglect him, either.

jSometimes I feel guiltly that I neglected his needs and that it is too late. He is verrrrry self- reliant. And I both love and respect that in him. But, I wonder if it developed from my neglect.

I have resources to deal with the "me" part of this. But, I would really appreciate some feedback.